Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Why "Cosmos" Will NOT be Accompanied by Creationist Explanation for...well...the Cosmos

Neil deGrasse Tyson came out swinging when evangelical types complained that the TV show, Cosmos, which presents the evolution-based theory of how the universe came into being, ought have a few scenes explaining "an alternative theory," creationism. DeGrasse had a brilliant retort: “You don’t talk about the spherical Earth with NASA, and then say let’s give equal time to the flat Earthers."

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When I heard Carl Sagan state...uh...flatly... that "Evolution is a FACT." on the first "Cosmos," I wanted to jump up and cheer.

How many years has it been, and the ID-iots are still fighting provable facts? Will they ever let go of their security blankies? May they all catch some disease that is no longer treatable by antibiotics because the bacteria have EVOLVED!

Creationism has evolved, always in attempts to put it into science classrooms. In what follows here, there may be a "missing link" or two; I do not remember all of the descendants. Most of them have died in the US Supreme Court.

In about the 1960s (as I recall) Creationism evolved to Scientific Creationism.

In the 1980s it evolved to Intelligent Design. This one died in 2005, in a federal appellate court in Pennsylvania.

Bills introduced in state legislatures (by Republicans, of course) have since then sought to Teach the Controversy, then to secure Academic Freedom for teachers to teach their personal religious views, and more recently to prevent school administrators from interfering with teachers who are teaching their own religious views.

Often, legislators introduce these bills in response to demands by Xian constituents, and most such bills die unlamented deaths in legislative committees.

One made it into law in Louisiana and a young man Zack Kopolin (sp?) is leading the battle to have it repealed.

Creationists have not yet tried to get their stuff where it might be acceptable, into philosophy, history, or cultural studies classes. They seem to have a death wish.

For the most current news visit NCSE.COM, the National Committee for Science Education.

Oh! we need someone before that! We need a strong visionary person, with a sense of self-respect based on actual accomplishments, who can make decisions and develop the skill to present strong ideas in the face of fallacious arguments, who can see opportunists when they appear, and can stand up to hypocrisy without equivocating.

In the meantime, Zac can gain experience and training and be ready for the presidential elections of 2032.

I was a bit down on Cosmos when it started a few weeks back. I never saw the original version, for instance, so there seemed to be too much "paean to Sagan" going on. Also, it felt a bit too science-lite, and visually overdone.

But I gotta say, I love the digs he keeps getting in week after week. You can see stars more than 7000 lightyears distant? The universe is clearly older than 7000 years old then, isn't it? Nice little digression there to shiv a bunch of young-earthers. Brilliant stuff.